Obituary: Mr. Majeed Ali passes away
by Shahid Aziz
The Light (UK), July 2003 Issue (pp. 1–2)
Majeed Ali, a founder of the Lahore Ahmadiyya jamaats [branches] in Guyana (South America) and in the UK passed away on May 24, 2003. Mr. Ali was 80 years old and he had been ill for some time.
After the tragic events in Pakistan when the government of that country decided to take upon itself to decide people’s faith and declared Ahmadis to be outside the pale of Islam, a convention was held in London. Until then, we had devoted ourselves to propagation of Islam without creating Ahmadiyya organizations outside Pakistan. The time had come to review that decision.
Thus, it was that the Central Anjuman instructed the late Maulana Sheikh Muhammad Tufail, its imam and missionary in the UK, to purchase a building, which could serve as the centre of the branch in the UK. A building was purchased at 56 Longley Road, Tooting and a convention was held in the UK to mark its opening and to bring together Ahmadis from the world over to discuss the future of our Movement. I attended one or two sessions as a participant. After the convention the, then Vice President, Hazrat Dr Saeed Ahmad Khan toured the UK, visiting members in their homes and asking them to contribute their time and money towards the cause. It was at Hazrat Dr Saeed Ahmad’s behest that I started to take an active part in the UK branch. Shortly after that, Maulana Tufail asked me to become the Secretary of the UK branch.
The first task I took in hand was to draft a constitution and to circulate it to a steering group. At the insistence of some members, and against my better judgment, I included a clause in the constitution, which would have allowed non-Ahmadis to become ordinary members of the management committee. The first meeting of the steering committee was my introduction to Majeed and it was a baptism of fire. Majeed insisted that though everyone had a right to come to the ‘mosque’ for prayers or to attend our open meetings and lectures but the management must be in the hands of pledged Ahmadis. On being told that this would reduce the number of supporters, Majeed replied that he would much rather have one true Ahmadi Muslim to support him and to stand by him through thick and thin rather than a thousand others who are going to desert us in time of need. To my great delight and relief the clause was dropped.
The other thing I noticed about him was that propagation of Islam was always uppermost in his mind. He had brought along an A5 sized leaflet with the title ‘What is Islam?’ and he appealed for contributions to have one thousand copies printed for distribution. Everything, apart from dissemination of literature about Islam, could wait. This grew to printing seven thousand leaflets a month, most of these being distributed by Majeed by hand or by post.
Shortly after the first meeting of the committee, I moved to an office in the Strand. Majeed worked the evening shift, starting at 2 pm, at the Hilton Hotel at the time. On most days, he would ring me and ask me to meet him in the alley behind the hotel, after I left work. We would stand there and discuss matters for hours. It was then that I realized that Majeed knew the Holy Quran, the Old, and the New Testaments by heart. On Friday we would take the literature and go to the Central London Mosque to try and distribute it. Every time, there were arguments and most times Majeed and I would be attacked physically and saved by the police. We would also go to Speakers’ Comer on Sundays and, when we encountered Muslims, the same thing would happen. Even while traveling to work he would walk from carriage to carriage handing out leaflets. He also posted them overseas, addressing hundreds of envelopes by hand. Later on, professional distributors were used to distribute 200,000 leaflets around London. Maulana Nurani, Prof. Farid-ul-Haq and others toured the UK to incite Muslims against us. They held some meetings in North London to which Majeed and I went. Majeed had written down some questions. He gave me some of them and told me to ask these learned gentlemen. We are still awaiting answers to those questions.
Majeed did not accept anything without questioning it and without study. He had become an Ahmadi because he had been impressed by the literature sent to Guyana by the Woking Muslim Mission. His conviction deepened, he told me, because he saw that all those who abused the Promised Messiah [Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian] came to a sorry end. Yet, he was full of questions. When I showed him quotations from various saints and scholars where they had used for themselves the words nabi [prophet] and rasul [messenger], he was thunderstruck. After I assured him that I had the original books to support the quotations, he would not let me rest until I produced a small leaflet with the title ‘Who is a kafir [non-Muslim]?’ Majeed had it printed and he would distribute it wherever he went.
Shortly after we purchased Dar-us-Salaam, Majeed moved into a room at the first floor and continued his work from there. His eyesight was failing and he had other health problems, which restricted his mobility, and he greatly missed his tours of various jamaats and places around London to propagate Islam. However, he was always on the telephone dictating khutbas [sermons] and lectures and exhorting member to read and understand the Holy Quran and other religious books.
He lived at Dar-us-Salaam under the care of Mrs Anwar for fourteen years. Eventually, he had to move to a nursing home and it was there that he passed away. I pray that Allah may bless the work he did and grant him a great reward for it.